


Guiding Light

by knavessofhearts



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 21:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10953066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knavessofhearts/pseuds/knavessofhearts
Summary: Rumplestiltskin teams up with a guardian angel in order to reunite with his lost son, Baelfire.





	Guiding Light

 

 

Baelfire had an imaginary friend, but Rumplestiltskin was not supposed to know that. Since Baelfire could talk and totter around their tiny home, his young boy always seemed to be chasing after someone. He would often have a picnic in the field by their cottage, and always asked for extra food to share with his special friend. Rumplestiltskin watched his son talk to thin air for hours and hours, having the time of his life. Even late at night, when Rumplestiltskin realised Bae was still awake, he could hear Bae whispering to his imaginary friend about the stars, or papa or mama. He would tell the cold, night air about how we wished he remembered mama, even though he knew she left and wasn’t a nice person. Rumplestiltskin was glad, albeit a bit worried, that Baelfire had an imaginary friend- for at least he had a friend in their lonely village. The villagers shunned Rumple, and only begrudgingly acknowledged his son’s existence, and his own when they needed to buy wool off the cowardly spinner.

As the year wore on, and Baelfire grew, he talked less and less about his imaginary friend; and eventually Rumplestiltskin knew he had grown out of the childhood habit. Yet, there were still moments through his son’s life, Rumplestiltskin could never quite explain. When Baelfire fell out of a tree and broke his arm at the mere age of 5, Bae told of a blue light that softened his fall. When he wandered away or did not return home before darkness fell, Rumple would peer out the window and see the blue light guiding his son back to him. A handful of moments over ten years, that made Rumple believe something, or someone, was watching out and protecting his son. Perhaps it was Reul Ghorm, the Blue Star, that protected all children from harm. In the few years before the Ogres War, Rumplestiltskin thought little of these weird happenstances, or of Bae’s imaginary friend. Everything changed when Baelfire turned 13. Rumplestiltskin changed.

The darkness took over the cowardly spinner’s soul, and he watched as his son slowly but surely lost faith in his father. Despite everything that dagger gave him, he was powerless to keep his son from hating him. He made a deal, and he would not break his promise to his son if there was a way to give up the power and be a family again. Then the magic bean appeared in Baelfire’s hands, and it turned into a green vortex of the unknown, and Rumplestiltskin was the cowardly spinner once more. He clung to power, as he let go of his son, and suddenly it was dark. And he was alone.

He screamed out for his son in between fervent apologies, his panic setting in as he realised what he had done. Rumplestiltskin threw aside his wretched dagger and dug hopelessly into the ground that had swallowed up his boy, knowing full well he wasn’t there anymore. All Rumplestiltskin could feel and see was darkness, all light drained from his life the second his son vanished.

Then, above him in the sky, a blue light appeared and grew in intensity. His first, instinctive thought was that somehow Bae had found a way to come back to him, and a wave of joy and relief swept over Rumplestiltskin. Until the light came closer, and in a singular blast, the light became a person- with a terrified expression upon their face.

“What has happened? Where is Bae?!” the blue light demanded, and looked around their setting for any sign of Baelfire.

Rumple’s naïve hope dwindled out as quickly as it came, and now he was angry.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” but the person kept searching in bushes and behind trees, ignoring his questions.

“Where is Baelfire?! Something terrible must have happened…” she came to stand back in front of him, still crouched in the shallow grave left by the portal.

She was dressed so strangely in an ethereal, white hood, Rumple knew she was no fairy or Blue Star.

“How do you know of my son? Answer me!” Rumplestilskin yelled, and as she lowered her hood her eyes glistened in the moonlight, filled with tears, and meeting his.

“You can see me?” she said as though a thousand Ogres were about to descend on them, and she started to breathe heavily. Suddenly, she fell to the ground in front of Rumplestiltskin, with a harrowed look across her face.

“If you can see me, that means Baelfire is in grave danger…wherever he is, I can’t sense him,” she spoke to herself, and Rumplestiltskin sat up slightly and moved closer to the strange creature, grabbing his danger from behind him with one hand.

“Tell me who you are, and what you mean by my son being in danger. Or I promise you, there will be pain,” Rumplestiltskin growled, but the woman simply looked up at him in resignation.

“You know who I am, Rumple. I have been with you since the day you became a father. Since Baelfire learned how to walk and fall out of trees. I have been with you through every fever and nightmare. I was with you before you became… _this_ ,” She said as she looked over the Dark One as though he were the devil incarnate.

Rumple fell back, his hand softening his grip on the dagger as he remembered the blue light, as he remembered all those tiny moments a parent laughs and adores at. The silly, play pretendings of a child, the slightly suspicious circumstances that drew Rumple’s curiosity. Moments lost in time…an imaginary friend that might not have been so imaginary after all.

Rumplestiltskin had once asked Baelfire about his friend, even asked her name.

 

_Her name is Belle, Papa. She is here to protect us._

 

Rumplestiltskin knew of magic now, the spinner who raised his son wouldn’t have known what she was, but the Dark One knew.

“Belle. You’re….you’re an angel,” Belle nodded, taking in a steady breath as they both made it back to their feet.

“A guardian angel, Rumplestiltskin, and Baelfire is my charge,” she explained, and stepped closer to Rumplestiltskin with a fierce, determined look in her eye,

“And the only reason anyone can see me is when my charge is in danger, and without me guiding him he is in danger. You have to tell me where he is, or he will be in terrible danger.”

Rumplestiltskin walked away, his eyes watching the pit below them, wondering how the circumstances of the last few minutes had led to this. He stroked his dagger absent-mindedly, before turning back to face Belle.

“He is gone, and I have no way of getting back to him,” he said in a sedated voice.

Belle un-crossed her arms, and walked up to face the Dark One. “Well then….you and I are going to have to find a way to him. Because despite whatever happened here, and despite all that power you have acquired, however much darkness you have let take a hold of you, we both need your son more than anything else in this world.”


End file.
